Jily Drabbles
by Orange-Coyote
Summary: Decided to start a story for all my Jily drabbles. Right now there's only the one, but I'm sure I'll get more up as time goes on.
1. Where's Harry?

_**A/N: Saw a post on Tumblr about James leaving baby Harry wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak and just had to write a short little thing. :]**_

* * *

Lily Potter walked into Godric's Hollow to find her husband standing calmly in the middle of the living, too calmly actually. When James was calm it usually meant something had happened that would cause Lily to be decidedly _not _calm, so he took it upon himself to be calm enough for the both of them. Maybe he thought such a tactic would keep her from yelling, or maybe he simply figured it best to just stand and take whatever she had to say until it all got out of her system. Either way, he was too quiet. Lily knew something was afoot. Now she had to decide if she really wanted to know what that was.

In the end, she decided she ought to know. "James?"

James turned abruptly, so lost in his own world he hadn't even heard her come in. "Hey Lils. How was work?"

Lily dropped her bag and cloak on the nearby easy chair and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around in his torso and sighing when he hugged her close and placed a kiss atop her head. "Long and tedious, as per usual. I'm just happy to be home. I was hoping to hold my son. Have you seen him?"

James' arms tensed just slightly and Lily immediately knew exactly what James had been doing before she arrived.

"Again?" she sighed.

"Yeah," James admitted sheepishly. "But I swear he's in this room somewhere!"

James had a habit of wrapping Harry up in his invisibility cloak when he set the boy down for a nap. While it was a sweet gesture, the fact was this exact situation occurred more often than not. Every single time James adamantly promised Harry was in a certain room where he'd laid the baby down, wrapped securely in the cloak atop a soft, safe surface. Half of the time they found him crawling down the hall, an unattached foot or arm being the sole reason they spotted him. Luckily he'd always been found unharmed and in one piece.

"James, we've talked about this!" Lily whipped out her wand and recited some locating spells, hoping they might just work. "After we find him, you and Sirius are making a map for this house." She saw a flash of moment in her peripheral vision and quickly turned to find the source. Success! There, just behind the coffee table, she could see a chubby little finger reaching up to poke at a toy snitch.

She strode over and picked Harry up quickly, hugging him tightly to her chest. "There's my little boy," she cooed. "Did Daddy do something irresponsible again? Yes, he did."

James joined them, wrapping his arm around the two most important people in his life (better not let Sirius hear him say that), with a soft smile. "He likes it."

Harry began to cry, his face pinched in the way that told Lily he was hungry. "We'll discuss this after he's finished feeding." She walked off into the kitchen without a single glance back. She did, however, hear James shout after her, "You're not really cross, are you?"


	2. Featherless Quills?

_**A/N: This one was inspired by a post going around Tumblr. Link to said post is at the bottom.  
**_

* * *

Lily Evans threw open her trunk the moment her father had left her room and closed the door behind him. She contemplated locking it, but figured no one would bother her what with her mother and Petunia both out shopping.

Her anger seeped from her pores, the frustration and betrayal still so fresh in her mind, as she rummaged through to the bottom of her trunk where her box of quills lay. Snape, Severus Snape, her best friend of nearly ten years, had called her a yes his pride had been hurt and yes Lily understood that, but that was no reason to turn on the person who had only been trying to help him. Just like that, their friendship ended. _I don't need help from a mudblood like you._

_Well_, Lily thought to herself as she emptied the wooden box above her trash bin, watching as each and every quill fell to the bottom with a hollow thump, _I'll show him a mudblood._

`.`.`.`

The sixth year of Lily's magical education was beginning and after having the summer with her friends and the comfort of her books, she had mostly gotten over the sting of Severus Snape's words. But she refused to back out on her plan.

As the students were released to their dormitories, Lily made sure to arrive ahead of her roommates. She slid her quill box out of the drawers at the foot of her bed and opened it, smiling at the sight which then met her eyes. Not a single quill remained, all being replaced by ballpoint pens.

Pens she had found on the floor of her closet at home, pens swiped from Petunia's desk when the girl had been particularly nasty, pens she'd grabbed from the junk drawer in the kitchen of her favorite aunt's home (Aunt Portia hadn't minded, although she had given Lily a strange look or two at the request). Red ink and blue ink for her notes, black ink for her assignments. Green ink for passing notes with Mary or Marlene. A myriad of pens which made Lily feel all the more certain about how this year would be so much better than the last.

She had never managed to get used to quills anyway.

* * *

James Potter sauntered into Charms just before class was about to begin, as was tradition for the Maraduers' first day back at Hogwarts. Sirius shared the class with him this year, Peter and Remus being stuck in the class containing the Slytherin sixth years. James didn't envy them.

Sirius waved from a table in the back, their usual seating arrangement unaltered. Hardly anyone other than the four of them willingly sat in the back anyway. And even then Remus mostly coerced one of them into sitting with him nearer the front. James walked toward him, shaking his head when Sirius began to wave manically with a giant grin on his stupid face. He set his bag down on the desk, falling into the empty chair beside his best friend and leaning back in his seat as he surveyed the classroom.

A head of red hair caught his eye, a bit more auburn than last year, and James noticed that Lily looked even more fetching than the year before. Not a big surprise though, seeing how she always looked better as the years passed.

"Prongs."

James tore his gaze from the back of Lily's head and questioned Sirius' intentions with a glance.

"What's that in Evans' hand?"

James, intrigued and a little glad to have an actual reason to look in her direction other than his soppy feelings, turned back and now focused his eyes on Lily's right hand. She was holding something he'd never seen before, a cylinder shaped object which she drew back and forth across her paper. James could see from his vantage point that whatever the thing was, it was some sort of writing utensil. A featherless quill? Did they make those somewhere in Diagon Alley?

He turned back to Sirius and shrugged. "I dunno. Looks like a featherless quill of some sort."

"A featherless quill?" Sirius then barked a laugh. "No such thing, Prongsie. I think you're going off your rocker. Or maybe you're having a vision of the future."

"Look for yourself," James countered. "It's writing on her paper. She's already taking notes of anything that leaves the professor's mouth; you know how she is."

"Go ask her," Sirius suggested.

James immediately shook his head in the negative. "Why don't you?"

"You're the one who fancies her, so you're the one who ought to ask. Simple logic."

"Will you ever let that go?" James sighed, already knowing the answer before it even left his best mate's mouth.

"Nope."

"_Fine_, I concede this once. I'll ask her after class. She'd cut my head off if I interrupt her precious lecture."

"Awww, scared of little Lilypetal, are you?"

"And you aren't?"

Sirius wisely chose to ignore that question.

`.`.`.`

James hurried to catch up to her after class had been released; for a girl with comparatively short legs, she moved fairly quick. He smoothly slid behind a pair of firsties looking completely lost and around a couple of fourth years snogging in the middle of the corridor (who even does that? and where were the prefects handing out detentions?), catching Lily by the crook of her elbow before she could turn the corner toward the Grand Staircase.

"Evans."

Lily turned, looking none too happy to see him. "What, Potter?"

Now that she stood before him, looking at him impatiently, James wondered why he felt so curious about this. Why he had given in to Sirius so easily. Deep down, he knew it could possibly be the chance of getting to speak with Lily with a legitimate reason. He almost turned without another word, considered breaking the tension with a chat up line or maybe a nice insult or two, but he swallowed most of his pride and just asked her what he had come to ask.

"What was that thing you were using in Charms?"

Lily, noticing James' grip still on her arm, dragged him out of the way of milling students and then shook her arm from his grasp. "I have no clue what you're on about. You'll have to be a little more specific if you'd like an answer to your question."

"That writing utensil, that featherless quill. Where did you get that?"

Lily stared at him for a full thirty seconds and then, to James' embarrassment, began to laugh, loudly. Her arms began to shake so badly she nearly dropped her textbooks and by the time she had calmed down enough to regain her breath, there were two stray tears leaking from her beautiful green eyes.

James, for his part, was perplexed. "What's so funny?"

"They're just _pens_, James. Not 'featherless quills.' Honestly." With those words, Lily turned with a slight smile still on her face and walked away, melding into the thinning crowd of students and going on her way.

"Pens?" James said aloud. But Lily had already gone.

`.`.`.`

"She laughed in your face? Oh, that's rich. I'm sorry I missed it," Sirius commented when James told the story of what had occurred. He rolled over onto his back where he laid on his dorm bed, stretching his arms above his head. "What the bloody hell is a _pen _anyway?"

"She left before I could ask," James admitted, tossing a wad of paper at his best mate's stupid smirking face.

Sirius ducked in the nick of time, throwing a random textbook in retaliation. James stopped it in midair with a levitating charm from where he stood across the room by his own dorm bed. He twirled it once before flicking it into Sirius' open trunk.

"She called me James, you know."

"Oh no, the world is ending," Sirius replied, deadpan. "Someone call for the Daily Prophet right away."

"Shut up, Padfoot."

"Did you fall to your knees and pop the question right then and there?"

"Shut your dog-breath mouth."

Sirius merely grinned. "I take it she didn't say yes then."

"I'm going to find Moony and Wormy. I don't need to put up with this." James turned toward the door, not at all surprised when he heard Sirius hop up and follow.

"I'll go along. We can ask Rem what those _pens _are all about."

"Will you stop putting extra emphasis on the word."

"Which word? _Pens_?"

James sighed. "Nevermind."

`.`.`.`

The duo found their missing friend in, where else, the library.

Remus sat leaning over his Ancient Runes text, one hand holding the book flat while the other scribbled who knew what on a piece of parchment. James took the empty seat to his left while Sirius plopped gracefully into the seat on the studious boy's right.

"Remus?" James poked the boy in question in the shoulder, trying to gain some attention.

Remus neither raised his eyes nor paused in his writing. "No. I'm working. Ask Peter."

Sirius took a more direct approach. "Moony, what's a pen?"

"A pen? Why do you want to know about pens?"

"Evans had one in class."

"Well there's nothing in the school rules against pens so if she prefers them to quills she has every right to use one. Now go away."

"We're not questioning her freedom to use one," James argued. "We just want to know what it is."

That caused Remus to put down his quill, carefully, as to avoid any stray ink blots marring his work, and look James in the eye. "You don't know what a pen is?"

"Don't sound so condescending about it," James whined. "You're taking Muggle Studies, aren't you? So you should know."

"Of course I know what a pen is," Remus replied as if only people under the age of four didn't know.

"Then what is it?"

Remus sighed. He looked between both of his friends and sighed again. "You really don't know?"

"I swear on Merlin's beard."

"A pen is a writing instrument commonly used by non-magical persons. It is a nice little piece of technology as it has a built-in ink chamber and so does not require constant dipping in an ink pot while its user is in the process of writing things down."

Sirius and James shared a look. "So it's a featherless self-inking quill?"

"Sure, if that's what you'd like to call it."

"So all Muggles use these pens?"

"Yes, James."

"And they don't need to be re-inked?"

"No, Sirius."

"But they're not magic?"

"No, not magic."

"Then how do they work?"

Remus sighed. Again. Something he did a lot in the presence of the other Marauders. "Let me try to explain with smaller words."

The three spent the next hour in the library, Sirius and James asking various questions about the Muggle world and Remus doing his best to answer them.

* * *

_**A/N: Don't know how well this will work out since FF isn't a fan of links within a story doc, but here we go. Just remove the parentheses and add the bottom half to the end of the url.**_

_**lilyevans()jamespotter().tumblr().()com**_

_**/post/62741103681/**_


End file.
